A forest fire that has gotten out of control in the Spanish province of Guadalajara has been raging for a fifth day, becoming the largest fire since the beginning of the year, Reuters reported. The agency notes that forecasters warn that the approaching heat wave will increase the risk of fires in much of the country, BTA reported.
Spain and southern Europe in general are facing increasingly severe forest fires during the summer season - a trend that scientists link to climate change.
The fire broke out less than two weeks after a forest fire near Bedar, in the province of Almeria, claimed the lives of 13 people - one of the deadliest fires in Spain in recent decades.
Today, authorities evacuated three more municipalities after the forest fire in the municipality of Mierla, in the province of Guadalajara, north of Madrid, covered an area of more than 26,000 hectares. More than 1,000 residents were evacuated from their homes.
The head of the autonomous region of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano Garcia-Pague, said that nearly 30 towns were engulfed in flames, underlining the challenge facing firefighters. Protecting human life and preventing the fire from reaching people's homes and urban areas remained the top priority, he stressed.
The Spanish meteorological service said the heatwave, the third of the year, was expected to last at least until Thursday, with temperatures in the region expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius, raising the risk of forest fires to extreme levels.
On Thursday, temperatures could reach between 42 and 44 degrees Celsius in some areas as hot, dry air masses begin to move north from Africa. The service also warned of possible thunderstorms with minimal rainfall in mountainous areas in eastern Spain.
Spain is already the country most affected by forest fires in the European Union this year. According to the European Copernicus Monitoring Programme - an EU programme that monitors the state of land, oceans, atmosphere, climate change and natural disasters using satellite and ground data - in 2026, 104,423 hectares were burned in Spain due to fires, compared to 41,781 hectares in France.
Last summer, Spain's fire season was extremely devastating, with 354,747 hectares of burned area recorded, the most in the last decade, and 63 major forest fires.